A man in his early 60s who was injured more than a month ago after a portion of his ancestral house at Purba Putiary in Regent Park collapsed succumbed to his injuries at a city hospital on Sunday night.
Sujit Biswas, 62, a resident of Purba Putiary Dakshin Para, is survived by his wife Basana, 60, who is recuperating in hospital from her injuries from the house collapse, police said.
A young girl who, neighbours said, lived with the couple fractured her leg and has been in hospital since.
“The first floor of the two-storey building collapsed on February 15 afternoon, just after the family had lunch. Hearing the loud sound, we all rushed to the house and saw dada (Biswas) and boudi (Biswas’s wife Basana) lying on the ground floor. A huge concrete chunk was lying on dada’s waist. He was unconscious,” recalled Krishna Das, who lives a building away from the Biswas family.
She said the girl, in her teens, who lived with the couple was bleeding profusely from her legs.
“She fractured one of her legs and was operated upon. Boudi and the girl were admitted to MR Bangur Hospital. They have been there since. Dada was shifted to SSKM Hospital,” she said.
The police said a portion of the first floor of the building had caved in and the occupants landed on the ground floor.
The owners of the building lived on the first floor and a few tenant families on the ground floor, said an officer at Regent Park police station. None of the tenants was injured.
Neighbours said the two-storey building was “at least 67-68 years old” and had not been repaired for years.
“Portions of the building were coming off. We used to jokingly tell the family that some day the house would collapse. At this, Sujit Biswas used to say if the house could survive Amphan (cyclone), it would survive anything under the sun. I could not recall when the house was last repaired,” said a neighbour.
People in the neighbourhood said the Kolkata Municipal Corporation had demolished a portion of the building soon after the collapse.
“But the remaining portion of the house has been left in a half-broken condition. Now that the owner has passed away, we are scared about what would happen to the building," said a neighbour.
Metro tried to contact Biswajit Mondal, councillor of Ward 114 of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, where the house is located. But calls and text messages sent to him went answered.
It was not clear whether the house had been inspected by the civic body before the collapse and declared "dilapidated" or "dangerous".